Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Wasn't a Professor
by rejooc
Summary: When a client dies before he can ask for help on his case, Sherlock and John simply can't turn it down. Explore the case with the duo, and see if you can solve it before they do. Cannon compliant, although might include a touch of JohnLock or Sherlolly. I'd love to know your theories on the case as it progresses!
1. Chapter 1

**Sherlock Holmes and the Lonely Masquerade**

 **Chapter 1: The Missing Professor**

There was nothing particularly interesting about 221B when it was only occupied by its tenants. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson weren't precisely ordinary, but not particularly interesting either. At least not by themselves. Now and again, the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, would make an appearance, although most of the time Sherlock and John hadn't noticed until they saw the plate of biscuits she'd left. This morning was no exception.

Between jobs, Dr. Watson had taken to occupying the couch nearest the wall outlet so he could charge his laptop while he watched YouTube videos or checked in on the news. It was also a good vantage point for the telly, and he was often found doing both at once. That is to say, he was often not doing much of anything.

Sherlock always seemed to be doing anything, but most of it meant very little to anybody else. He would watch one substance dissolve into another and then nod, as if he'd confirmed some private theory, and then repeat the exercise and shake his head, discouraged. He would leave various body parts in the fridge or on the counter to check the rates of various functions of decay, only to forget about them too long and have to start over. John once found boiled fingers in the tea kettle and an arm in the dishwasher, but it was certainly better than finding a head in the fridge.

In short, Sherlock and John were entirely focused on their own preoccupations, and hardly noticed a world passing around them. Sherlock, in particular, found its passing to be too dreadfully slow to take note of, and preferred to distract himself until the next case. John preferred to take advantage of the breaks, although he rarely felt they were long enough, and often that they were much too short. His anxiety over each new case that offered itself to the duo was almost as great as his eagerness, and the conflicting emotions were exhausting for the discharged army veteran.

It was during this very state of things that Professor E. R. Martin knocked gently on the men's door and introduced himself as such. Sherlock, aware of such things as a baggage tag reading "Steven Malone," and an ill-fitting laboratory coat apparently belonging to the school at Bart's Hospital, was immediately interested. Whatever else was true of the man's case, he himself was playing a role in it, and Sherlock would be damned before he'd let the first interesting opportunity in weeks to pass him by.

"I graduated from Bart's," John announced, apparently not realizing that his slovenly appearance and obvious unemployment failed to support his boast. "Worked there for a spat but preferred been at The Wellington most recently."

Professor Martin nodded, half a smile planted on his face. "Ah, very well, Doctor. I suppose we wouldn't have met. I've been away for quite a while."

"Which is what brings you here," Sherlock commented, saving John the embarrassment of whatever new thought had prompted him to open his mouth again. "You've only just returned, in fact, and have no intention of staying long. On the run perhaps?"

The man gaped, his mustache fumbling about as his mouth opened and closed indignantly. "How could you-? You couldn't possibly-!"

"I'm certain that he could, Professor," John interrupted, glancing from the client to Sherlock and back. "It's really much easier if you tell us everything. Less…obnoxious…too."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and scoffed quietly. "Bored," he muttered.

The Professor watched the exchange without speaking, although the part of his neck that was visible beneath his mottled grey beard turned a shocking purple and his face became uncomfortably tense. With a sigh and angry tug, he pulled each sleeve of his jacket down more comfortably and unbuttoned the front of his suit.

"So you've agreed to let us help, then! Splendid. So you've been in hiding but something happened last week to make you go back out on the run. You've been out of the country recently on a plane but travelled back to England last night. So, _Professor Martin,_ tell us what happened last night."

It was John's turn to roll his eyes as he began writing, taking note of the most important things Sherlock had mentioned and awaiting the man's reply. Unfortunately, he was still gaping, and his face had turned increasingly red. His eyes were bulging and small veins in his neck stood out as he stared at Sherlock, spluttering angrily.

Impatient, John looked up, only to see the man tumble from his chair and onto the floor. He spluttered once more, bellowed a smothered cough, and was still. John leapt from his own chair and knelt beside the man, pulling one arm above his head to allow him to vomit safely should the need arise. Small foaming bubbles dripped from the man's lips and his eyes were lifeless. John hoisted him to his feet and did his best to provide the Heimlich, a difficult maneuver on an unconscious man, especially one whose height far exceeded his own.

"Sherlock!" John bellowed, grunting as he worked to save the man's life. The detective's response was merely to shake his head sadly and look away, at which point John reluctantly returned the man to the floor. "He choked," he said, staring at the man's face for a moment before shutting his eyelids. "He choked and I'm a doctor and I didn't save him."

"Nonsense, John. Look closer," Sherlock replied, standing slowly and stepping across the room to the hallway. "The Professor has been dead for a rather long time and this man has been poisoned." Ignoring John's confused expression, Sherlock shouted for Mrs. Hudson to call the police and returned to the corpse who had been a client.

Standing over the man's body, he moved quickly, memorizing the scene. He bent down and retrieved the man's necklace—a shard of colored glass on a leather cord—and returned to his seat, pocketing the item as he went.

"Your opinion, John?" Sherlock asked as Mrs. Hudson barreled into the room.

Her hair flat and her dress limp, Mrs. Hudson seemed more frazzled than usual, and gasped loudly when she saw the man on the floor.

"You've got another one killed in my flat?" she shouted, covering her mouth with her hands.

"And you've had another late night with your latest tosser," Sherlock responded, pulling out his phone and navigating quickly through some webpage or another. "I wouldn't hold out your hopes," he added, "the man's clearly keeping you a secret and doesn't care too much for what you have to say about it."

"Oh!" Mrs. Hudson stomped once and glared at the detective. "I'll have you know," she spat, as angry as she could ever be with either of these two men, "that he had a doctor's appointment this morning and we woke up late! That's all."

"Nope," Sherlock replied, popping the 'p' loudly. "Keep going John." The doctor returned his eyes to the body and began checking for mark anywhere. "No, but he was late for work."

"So he's a doctor, then?" Mrs. Hudson asked, struggling to keep a smile off her face.

"No, he's a...businessman. You might check your stores of Vicodin when you get back to your flat, although I suspect he'll get more from the patients he meets today. Has a whole supply of things and he has to get it from somewhere."

Mrs. Hudson scowled and planted her hands on her hips. More determined now, John kept his gaze firmly downward and mumbled something about "no signs of bruising" under his breath.

"Now how could you possibly know all that from seeing how I've slept?"

"Did you ever call the police?"

"Sherlock!"

"Alright," he growled, reaching into the opposite pocket from where he'd put the necklace. "Because he offered me a pretty penny." Clutched between his thin fingers was a handwritten note, offering me 55 pounds for a gram of 'H'. Mrs. Hudson gasped again, turning and running down the stairs with loud sobs and angry shouts.

John sighed gently, not looking up. "That was rude, Sherlock," he said quietly as the sound of heavy footfalls sounded downstairs. "I hope you didn't take him up on it, though, that's a terrible price." A small smile crept across the doctor's mouth as Sherlock laughed and stood again to greet the officers.

"Sherlock Holmes," a familiar voice boomed, friendlier than it should have been considering there was a dead body on the floor.

"Greg," John nodded, standing, too.

"Lestrade," Sherlock added, greeting the Detective Inspector as he entered the room from the hallway, "we're going to need Molly Hooper."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Man Who Wasn't What He Was**

Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade had had his hands full in recent weeks, particularly since Sherlock had been far from helpful. Despite text messages, emails, and personal visits from the desperate man, Sherlock had been resolutely firm; he wouldn't take any cases he wasn't needed on. Of course, this meant that all the cases that would have taken less than a week for Sherlock and John often took Scotland Yard several, even stretching into months at times, and Lestrade's caseload was badly clogged.

When the call had come into the station that there had been a death in 221B, most of the senior staff had refused, citing Sherlock's arrogance and general personality as reason enough to leave the matter to someone else. Lestrade however had seen an opportunity to tally up a favor. And so, despite all the reasons he really shouldn't be leaving the office, he left, ruefully making his way to the familiar flat. Sherlock, of course, was not fooled.

"No coat?" he asked, after the initial greetings were done and John had gotten Molly on the phone. Although either of the other men would have been able to get in touch, it was generally easiest if John did it. His knowledge of medicine and ability to recount an interesting event with truly little detail was both wonderful and appalling to Sherlock, but he could recognize its usefulness. John's call to Molly lasted less than two minutes.

"No, I— Well I—" Lestrade had no answer. The truth, of course, was that his current work seemed to guarantee he'd spend his day indoors, and he hadn't anticipated needing to go out. "I forgot it at home," he finally mumbled. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, apparently unconvinced, but didn't say anything.

"Right," John announced, "Molly's expecting us. Your boys ready to get their part done?"

Lestrade stared at John for a moment, clearly grumpy with the lack of detail he was provided. "Yeah 'course they are." He shouted down the stairs for the forensics team to come in and John could almost feel Sherlock's relief when Anderson was not among those who entered. "So what's this about? New client?"

"Well, not anymore, is he?" Sherlock huffed as he made his way down the hall to his bedroom. John and Lestrade didn't watch him go, each of them preoccupied with their own frustrations.

"Bad day?" Lestrade guessed.

"We didn't think it'd be. Sherlock actually seemed interested. But he didn't seem surprised when he keeled over dead, either." John shook his head and shrugged.

Rolling his shoulders and stepping towards John so they could talk more comfortably, Lestrade reached a hand up towards his chest as if to retrieve his notebook from his inside coat pocket. Of course, he didn't have his coat, or its pocket, or the notebook. The gesture probably felt as awkward as it looked and John chuckled softly when Lestrade ran his hands down his face and groaned.

"I have my notes," John said, returning to his chair for his pad. "I can copy them for you, or if you want to take your own."

"Just tell me what you know," Lestrade responded, taking a picture of the page with his phone. "I'm sure I won't be of much help on this one anyway."

The two men sighed and turned towards the crime scene, where men and women with a variety of tools and equipment took samples, pictures, measurements, and more. John crossed his arms and Lestrade put his hands in his pockets, both feeling strangely at ease with the situation. Nothing was ever quite boring with Sherlock Holmes, although the man often said he was bored himself. It was an honor in its own way to be counted among his friends, of which he had precisely seven. If you asked him, he didn't have any.

"Man said he was a professor," John started, thinking back to their brief encounter, "but Sherlock seemed to think it was a fake name. When the man died, Sherlock said 'the professor' has been dead for a long time."

"Yeah, did he say what that means?"

"'Course not." There was another pause and another sigh, before John continued. "He said he graduated from Bart's but honestly I never saw him. I didn't meet everybody but still. That's easy enough to check up on. Sherlock said a bunch of stuff, did his usual bit, but nothing really stood out to me. Except that I dunno how he was poisoned. It took a long time."

"He was poisoned?" Lestrade asked, both curiously and incredulously. He was certainly used to Sherlock's deductions and he knew John was an accomplished man of medicine but he still was unaccustomed to the sort of confidence with which John declared this fact.

"Yeah, you can see bits of spittle and foam around his mouth, and he seemed to suffocate. I tried to do the Heimlich but he wasn't choking. His face had gone all red and his muscles seemed to seize up. At least, he didn't motion for help at all."

"Lovely," Lestrade responded sarcastically, "so we've got a murder and the murderer could have a day or more's head start on us."

"Worse," John turned towards Lestrade, glancing down the hall where Sherlock had disappeared and squaring his shoulders towards the detective, "Sherlock said he'd just come into town. If it was one of these slow-acting poisons, the killer has extra time and hundreds of kilometers on us."

"Even better."

Sherlock didn't reappear for nearly an hour, by which point the crime scene investigators were nearly finished with their work. The best thing about murders that didn't happen where the body was recovered was that the scene didn't need to be examined so carefully. With the body packed away and ready to be transported to the lab, there was little left to do but final photographs. Of course, it helped that 221B had been photographed and examined so many times before, and that John, Sherlock, and Mrs. Hudson all had fingerprints on file with the Yard. Still, Sherlock was impatient.

"Come on," he shouted, hurrying a young woman out the door with a flourish, "we have things to do!"

"Ah, c'mon, Sherlock. You really mean it, you haven't been busy at all? Why'd you stop helping out?" Lestrade whined, cocking his head in disbelief.

"I told you, Detective Inspector. Not unless I'm needed!" Sherlock reached for his coat, eagerly preparing to leave, and John took the cue, retrieving his own outerclothes.

"You think you're needed here?" Lestrade pushed, a move which John doubted would help him. Certainly the Detective didn't want an additional case piled on top of his precariously balanced workload.

"Well _you're_ not going to solve it. You've got far too many cases on backlog and look at what you're wearing! You really should stay in the office," with a smirk and a turn, Sherlock exited the room and bounded down the stairs, inappropriate excitement fueling his movements. "Come on, John! We have a bag to explore!"

The doctor gave an awkward glance back at Lestrade, who stood hopelessly in the center of the room. "Watch your step there," he added, pointing at the dective's feet which were dangerously close to where a man had recently collapsed dead on the floor. Without another word, John followed Sherlock down the stairs.

When John reached the sidewalk, he was surprised to see Sherlock holding a cab for them. Usually, the detective would simply leave, pursuing whatever of his most recent interests were at the forefront of his mind. Nodding gratefully and a bit awkwardly, John climbed through the open door and took a seat on the passenger side, adjusting his position as Sherlock moved in after him.

"Wellington," Sherlock told the driver, who nodded and merged into traffic.

"Wellington? I thought we're going to Bart's?" John asked, peering out the window as if the streets of London might offer him a clue into the workings of Sherlock's mind.

"We are. Just need to check up on something first."

The hospital's south building looked a bit like a set of moss-covered stairs and its north one like a cinder block with windows.

"Oh, calm down," Sherlock chastised when John said as much. "We're not going inside. Drive up to the north building please," he told the driver, ignoring John's stammers.

"Is this about Mrs. Hudson?" he asked. "You think you're going to catch her druggy lover? You don't even know what hospital she took him to!"

Sherlock shot him a glance that assured him he did in fact know what hospital she took him to. "No," he said finally, "although it wouldn't be all bad if we spotted him. We're looking for a professor."

John sat back against the seat and laughed disbelievingly. "He's gone mad," he muttered to himself through a dazed grin, "he's gone bloody mad and we're going to stalk a dead man."

"I'm the mad one and you're talking to yourself. No, John, we're looking for the _real_ professor. If the man who came to our flat was _not_ Professor E. R. Martin, then that man has to be someplace, or he has to be dead."

"Right but you can't spot a man you've never met out the window based on his name. You don't even know if he's here!"

"You must learn to look," Sherlock responded simply, shutting down the conversation. He pointed out the window at a man in a suit sitting on the low wall outside the BP filling station. The man's face was relaxed enough and he certainly exuded confidence, but something about his demeanor struck John as odd, too. "See? You just have to know where to look."

"What am I seeing?" John asked.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows and glanced at his friend for a moment before looking back out the window as they drove by. "See the small bag he's got with him?" He asked, returning to a more comfortable position as they moved past the man and instructing the driver to take them to Bart's.

"Yeah?"

"That's our victim's."

John shook his head and laughed again, "How can you possibly know that?" he demanded. "Not because I'm impressed, or because it's amazing," he clarified before Sherlock could say whatever he'd opened his mouth to, "but because I really don't know what got you to that one."

Sherlock smiled, settling his eyes forward through the windshield as the streets of London melted past them. "Elementary, John," he responded, "he tried to buy my drugs."

"Yeah you really shouldn't have those."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: A Body, a Bag, and a Beautiful Goodbye**

There was little indeed about these trips to the mortuary that were particularly to John's liking. In fact, he became a doctor largely to avoid the monotony of working on patients that wouldn't wake up. Of course, he also became a soldier, and Sherlock had a suspicion that John coddled an unpleasant interest in death. In either case, John let Sherlock take the lead on the examination of Proessor E.R. Martin. Not that Sherlock would have had it any other way, of course.

"Male, mid-forties, he's had some pretty bad injuries to his hands, looks like the bones have been broken several times, and he's got a couple of toes missing," Molly Hooper rattled off, listing her observations from memory.

"Clumsy?" Lestrade asked, standing near the doorway and watching Sherlock with a resigned sort of awe. It was clear he hadn't given up hopes of getting on Sherlock's good side, although the odds of that happening were generally pretty low.

"No," Sherlock responded, peering through his magnifying glass at the corpse's mouth.

"He's had a few surgeries but not anything massive—appendix, tonsils, things like that—and he's got track marks," Molly blushed slightly, avoiding Sherlock's face. Lestrade chortled loudly, eliciting a grumpy sigh from John, who didn't particularly find Sherlock's drug-abuse history very funny.

They each continued their own preoccupation in silence, which meant that Sherlock continued his examination and the others continued watching Sherlock. There was an odd beauty to the way he conducted himself when his mind was so full of observations and deductions that he could hardly think of showing off. He still could, of course, and did, but his mind was much more entertained with thoughts of murder and motive and method than with the tired applause of his friends. He moved with delicate precision, each motion calculated to discover something new, as if he was reading a heavy book and simply adjusting his lighting and turning the page.

He carried with him a particular fondness for the bizarre, as he had since childhood according to Mycroft, but no one cared to ask Mycroft, and often dallied extra time at strange wounds, marks, or others places of notice on the dead man's body. At one point, he stared for five whole minutes at the man's inner arm. John was momentarily worried that Sherlock was caught in some fantasy about his own marks, but decided that that was unlikely considering the natural high a good murder always seemed to offer. Moments later, Sherlock announced the quality and quantity of the man's drug habit and cleared John's conscience—he was simply making observations, not fantasizing.

Finally satisfied, Sherlock stood up straight, clicking his magnifying glass back into its case, and smiled at his companions. "Anything else, Molly?" he asked, gesturing as if for her to continue.

"I'm sorry?" she asked nervously.

"You were telling us your observations, what else have you noticed on this body? I'm sure there'll be more after the autopsy, but this is helpful preliminary stuff. Go on then."

Molly glanced at John and Lestrade for support but they each only shrugged and offered none. "That was nearly an hour ago, Sherlock," she whispered.

"Ah, what is time to a well-ordered mind? I was listening and I recall perfectly where you left off. Go on then," he repeated, smiling oddly at the mousy woman. John recalled with uncomfortable clarity the two's last meeting and coughed softly to break the silence.

"Go on, Molly," John said, stepping towards the body himself and peering at the man's veins.

Molly blinked once, looked from John to Sherlock and back, and then continued with a sense of uncomfortable hurriedness. "Right, well, he's aging fast, likely due to the drugs, and he's a habit of dehydration, you can see the way the skin's held its shape around his eyes and mouth. Both from age and from dehydration." John nodded politely, noting the features she pointed at.

"John?" Sherlock asked, having nodded his own acknowledgement of Molly. "What about you?"

"Well, he was a nervous man, yeah? You could tell that from when he was at the flat. And he's got a bit of a scratch mark here, behind his ear," John pointed, indicating a spot where the neck and head connect behind the ear, "he's a habit of scratching at himself, then. Maybe drugs, maybe nervous, maybe both." Anger built in his stomach a bit as he thought of what Sherlock would look like laying on a slab, himself and Molly discussing the signs of Sherlock's drug-abuse.

"Good," Sherlock commented, idly moving away from the body towards the table where the man's belongings were sprawled out. Evidently he was done with his examination and John smiled awkwardly at Molly as she rolled a white sheet over the man's face.

"What about you, then?" Lestrade asked, joining the group around the table. "What've you got?"

Sherlock sighed, turning to look at the detective. "He's left-handed, he's been on the run because he's accrued a great load of debt and has recently taken up the identity of a man who he both knows in fact to be dead and who he knows to have connections to the local drug rings, although this probably wouldn't help him any as he's a long-time habit of getting into money problems. He's single and only planning on staying in town long enough for an upcoming medical conference, which will also happen to be the site of a massive drug scheme. Pharmaceuticals, in fact." By the time he was finished, Molly's small mouth had popped open, although whether it was shock that he'd made so many deductions or shock that he'd done so in so few breaths was unclear. Lestrade had pulled out a notebook he must've retrieved on his way to the lab and began scribbling, but must've given up because he'd shut the book again before Sherlock had finished. John nodded, listening carefully and trying to think of where these things might've come up.

Some of them, he decided, did make a bit of sense. The track marks were on the man's right arm, so it made sense he'd be left-handed, and if he was pretending to be a professor it made sense that he'd either known the name was vacant or known there was no such man. "So why couldn't he have just made up E. R. Martin?" he asked, looking back up at Sherlock who was waiting for a response. "How do you know he's a dead man?"

"Easier to lie about an identity you didn't make up and if he's going to this conference and making a name for himself at Bart's then he'll need an identity that already carries some weight. He brandished the name about in our flat the same way you brandish your military history when it serves so he either wasn't lying or he knows a lot about the man he's pretending to be."

"How do you know he's lying at all then?" John pressed.

Sherlock simply pointed at the smaller of the man's two bags. The larger, a trunk, was clearly marked _Professor E. R. Martin_ and was opened to reveal a variety of things of the sort one might expect a professor of medicine to carry. The smaller bag was soft and reminded John of his own overnight bag. This one contained what appeared to be a full change of clothes, deodorant, shaving kit, and wallet. Sherlock reached a hand out to the luggage tag on this second bag and pulled back the leather case to reveal an aged address card and "James August" printed in sharply angled handwriting.

"It's an old bag," Sherlock explained, apparently in tune with the confusion of the others. "The trunk is new but this bag is old. If he's just on vacation and willing to buy one new trunk he might as well have bought another, which means he packed the trunk later, only after having left wherever he's from with all he needed to be ready to go in this smaller bag, one he already had. He bought the trunk and loaded it only after he'd taken on Professor Martin's identity. This bag is where we'll find what we need to know. He's been careful with it, you can see it's been repaired and cleaned. The trunk is much newer but there's scuffs he hasn't bothered to buff and a handle ripped off on one side but he hasn't replaced it"

"So then whomever he's on the run from—the drug ring or whatever—they poisoned him?" Lestrade speculated, dangerously offering his own ideas into the mix. If he was anyone but Sherlock's friend, he likely would've been told to leave. As it was, Sherlock had a somewhat more polite response, at least insofar as he actually did respond.

"No, think about it! Do drug lords poison people who owe them?" Sherlock asked, although his eagerness to answer made it clear he didn't expect a reasonable answer from any of them. "Look at his hands, this isn't his first run-in. So they're definitely ready to kill him and they're not afraid to make it hurt."

"You mean those broken bones…and the toes…those were…?" Molly swallowed hard, apparently more uncomfortable with torture than death, a sentiment John couldn't help sharing in.

Sherlock nodded gravely, although he couldn't wipe the brightness from his eyes. "Yes," he replied quietly, "and this isn't their work. Much too neat. Methanol probably. Takes hours and the killer's probably far away. It's genius really, and not something a drug lord would do. Unless…oh of course! Stupid _stupid!_ " Suddenly dazzled, Sherlock pushed past the group and back towards the doors to the street. John followed him, not wanting to miss whatever was going to happen next.

"Where are you going? What about the rest of the guy's stuff?" Lestrade shouted, pointing back at the table of things barely touched.

"I need some tea!" Sherlock shouted back. Molly and John exchanged a confused shrug as John followed Sherlock around the corner, and he couldn't help appreciating the woman's resilience. Working with Sherlock was one thing, dating him was quite another, and John doubted whether Sherlock remembered his dinner plans with the lab technician.

Of course, Sherlock did love surprises. He darted back past John, ignoring Lestrade's grumbling, and planted a gentle kiss on Molly's forehead. He wrapped her in a soft hug, pressing his cheek against the top of her hair. She took only a moment to return the gesture, reaching up and kissing the only part of Sherlock's exposed skin she could reach, a small spot under his chin. They smiled for a moment and then he left, leaving a blushing Molly Hooper to clean up the lab.

John smiled, thinking of how much Mary would've loved to see this, and followed Sherlock to the street in time to see him hailing a cab. His ruddy blush and soft smile were enough to demonstrate that he was as infatuated with Molly as she with him and John cast a glance to the sky, hoping that his wife was enjoying the show.


	4. The Man Who Wasn't a Professor

Mrs. Hudson stared suspiciously as Sherlock consumed his second cup of tea. It might've been wise for Sherlock himself to be concerned, as John doubted it was beyond Mrs. Hudson to poison a drink with sleep aids, laxatives, ipecac, or some other highly inconvenient "addition" to her usual brew. Sherlock seemed unconcerned, however, and soon poured himself a third cup. John sipped idly at his first, but Mrs. Hudson paid him no mind.

"You've got to apologize," she warned. "I won't help you until you apologize for what you said about Jack."

Sherlock scoffed into his drink, spluttering as he spoke. "'Jack'? The best he could come up with was 'Jack'? That's really got to concern you, Mrs. Hudson." She narrowed her eyes, clearly not amused with the detective's antics.

"I'm not playing, Sherlock."

John remained quiet through the exchange, much preferring they weren't having it at all. He set his cup down, tired of pretending he was drink anything, and sat back in his chair; if they were going to pretend to be having a casual conversation, he'd at least get comfortable.

"What do you want from me then?" Sherlock pressed, setting his own cup down with a clank and staring right back at the landlady. "I can apologize but you know I'm right and so you know it doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, you really are awful, you know that? I can't imagine Molly will like that attitude forever, you'd best start working on it now." John winced as Mrs. Hudson spoke.

Throwing such a below-the-belt shot at Sherlock was quite out of character for the old woman, and he wasn't sure whether to be concerned or angry. On the one hand, it was absolutely unfair to make Sherlock feel any worse than he already did about his relationship with Molly. He'd been working very hard to be an adequate partner and to be a bit more _human_ for the young woman who'd won his heart. At the same time, John knew Sherlock's jabs could be quite hurtful, even if they were aimed from a simple observation, and he really should be careful.

"Ms. Hooper is quite fine, thank you for your concern. Mrs. Hudson, the man you've been seeing has been lying to you and you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble if you stay in with him. I can tell that you're planning on seeing him tonight, but not at home, and I'd like for you to take us where he asked you to pick him up. I can't let you get hurt," he added, as if as an afterthought. "He may very well be a murderer, Mrs. Hudson."

Mrs. Hudson gasped loudly, and it was John's turn to splutter, although he had the benefit of having already put down his cup. "Sherlock," he stammered, "you think that this 'Jack' is the murderer? He killed the professor?"

"He wasn't a professor, John, and yes I do." Sherlock leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers.

"But how?" John didn't really expect an answer and wasn't disappointed when he didn't receive one to his satisfaction.

"I'm hoping," Sherlock suggested, eyeing Mrs. Hudson carefully, "that we can find out tonight."

John rolled his eyes and laughed once, a small harsh chuckle. "I meant how do you know, you dolt."

"Oh. But that's much less interesting."

The arranged meeting place between Mrs. Hudson and the man calling himself Jack Barrington was much worse than John might've imagined, if he'd had the imagination to give it a try. Within a few kilometers of the hospital where Mrs. Hudson had dropped the man off, the sultry alleyway provided little by means of disguise. The graffiti on the walls and the obviously in-use abandoned buildings, with their broken windows and littered doorways, were clear signs of the activity within. Sherlock and John crouched in the backseat of Mrs. Hudson's car, and John wondered idly if the man was just looking for a ride in the more literal sense. A pretty car seemed as valid an excuse as any for a fake relationship.

"Hello, Jack!" Mrs. Hudson called out the window, rolling it down far enough so that her voice carried but not so far as to allow access should _one of those crazies_ , as she so fondly called them, suddenly try to reach inside. The man who responded to her call was familiar, and John recognized him as the one they'd seen outside the hospital earlier. As per usual, Sherlock was right.

He climbed inside the passenger seat and smiled coolly. Sherlock interrupted before he could speak, though, imitating Mrs. Hudson's friendly beckon: "Hello, Jack."

The man scrambled, desperately clutching at the door's handle, but Mrs. Hudson locked the doors and sped off. He knew better than to put up a fight when he was so desperately outnumbered, and simply put his hands against the car roof instead, demonstrating that he wasn't reaching for a weapon.

"I know you," he said, nodding at Sherlock, "I tried to buy your drugs."

"Yes, frankly awful price really, it's wo-"

"Sherlock." John's voice was a low warning to get to the point and Sherlock adjusted accordingly.

"Right, well, I want to know why you killed James August." Sherlock adjusted comfortably in his seat, making sure to present himself in the most intimidating light.

"I didn't kill nobody," Jack protested, grimacing uncomfortably.

"No, of course not, you only offered him something new, and he didn't know what methanol was, right?"

"Methanol," John mused, remembering Sherlock saying as much in the lab.

Jack sighed, eyeing his captors with a weary expression. "Alright, I did it, but I had good reason! The man was a maniac! Tried to sell me out, get me to give up all my profits. I've gotta feed myself!"

"I've no doubt that's true, he absolutely intended to harm you. But you're still not allowed to kill people." Sherlock almost sounded playful, teasing his catch as well as he could before they arrived at their destination. It hadn't been his idea, of course, but Mrs. Hudson insisted—if they were going to capture Jack, they were going to take him to Scotland Yard.

The man's confession was easy enough to obtain, particularly after Sherlock laid out his own deductions. "You'd been working the market here for a while, particularly targeting long-term care patients." He eyed Mrs. Hudson, who put a hand on her bad hip and gasped.

"My pain medicine," she squeaked, "you took my bloody pain medicine!"

"Yes, and he sold it. You were giving your profits to your boss but it wasn't enough and he demanded more. Said he'd come to town to collect it if you didn't do something about it. Of course, that's when you took action. You knew James was a tough man, you'd heard of his story. Broken hands, missing toes, the man had risen to his status through hard work and endurance, and he still had debts to pay. He wasn't a man to be messed with and you didn't want this to be traced back to you. You slipped him some methanol the day before, when he first confronted you, and by the time he came to us he was a dead man walking. It's no surprise he didn't plan on staying in town long, he was planning on being rid of you within two days."

"But why'd he come to us at all?" John asked.

"We were the threat," Sherlock replied simply, his eager eyes glowing with triumph. "He was coming under fire from the next higher up and owed a lot of money. He figured if we caught him then his hands would be clean but the job would be done and the contract on Jack would be paid to him. Easy enough."

"So you knew it wasn't a drug lord that killed him, because he was the drug lord himself?"

"Yep." He popped the 'P' obnoxiously, smiling a bit and glancing between John, Jack, and the others who had gathered to hear Sherlock's testimony. "I really didn't expect this to be so easy. And just in time for dinner!"

Adjusting his coat and tugging his collar erect, he smiled at his friends and pushed open the door, shooting off a text to Molly that likely read something much too simple for all the joy it brought the two lovebirds.

"It was Mrs. H's lover, I'll be there in ten. You're pretty. SH"


End file.
